Saturday, July 04, 2020

Rising Tzar: Putin KGB Agent Who Stole Communist treasures courtesy of Tax Havens now President until he dies in 2036

SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE THE VOICE THAT CRIES IN THE DESERT. BUT I’M NOT ALONE:  Happy July 4th! Happy Independence Day


IS THIS A GREAT COUNTRY, OR WHAT? Nathan’s Famous hot dog-eating champs to defend titles in secret locale:“The July Fourth tradition, usually held outside Nathan’s original location on Coney Island’s Surf and Stillwell avenues, will this year take place at a private location in the neighborhood, without a live audience and with COVID-19 safety protocols in place…You can’t cancel Thanksgiving, you can’t cancel Christmas and you can’t cancel the Fourth of July,[competition host George Shea] said. And canceling the hot-dog contest would be like canceling the Fourth of July. That is why we had to make it work one way or another.’”


Yet On 4th of July this story caught our attention:

“It's far from clear that the next US President will be able to roll back the consequences of this week, which leave both Presidents Vladimir Putinin Moscow and Xi Jinping in Beijing more decisively in control of their own countries and more able to act assertively.
In other words, Trump has made an indelible mark on the world -- and it may not be for the good.
    It is no coincidence that Putin and Xi have cemented their grip on cherished goals, as the clock runs down on Trump's first, and possibly only, term in office.
    “At a large and raucous Beijing business dinner two years ago, I sat next to a former Chinese ambassador. The trade war was just beginning to ramp up, but tariffs on solar panels, washing machines, steel, soybeans and aluminum were already biting into China's bottom line.
    The diplomat, who had spent many years in Europe, told me in very precise terms that Trump was intentionally preventing China taking its rightful place in the world as a high-tech advanced economy.”



    Women in Vladimir’s life

    Vladimir Putin's Stasi ID: A Press Sensation and Its Historical ...
    Why did Vladimir Putin have an East German Stasi ID card? The answer is rather simpler


    small incident on the sidelines involving KGB officer Vladimir Putin was later to become mythologized  ...


    The power of one: Putin settles in for an extended stay
     "Thank you very much for your support and trust," Putin sang 



    Villain or victim? Vladimir Putin in aggressive form - but we may be pushing him too far
    Villain or victim? Vladimir Putin in aggressive form - but we may be pushing him too far


    Si­lence the op­pos­i­tion

    In Russia, members of the opposition have been imprisoned, poisoned and murdered. One of Putin's more vocal critics, opposition politician Boris Nemtsov, was shot near the Kremlin in 2015. Five people were convicted of the murder, but the legal proceedings have been criticised. According to Nemtsov's family, the murder was politically motivated.



    Russian journalists Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan first published “The Red Web: The Struggle Between Russia's Digital Dictators and the New Online Revolutionaries” in 2015. In that book, the pair used investigative reporting and sharp analysis to show how the Kremlin was using the Internet to its advantage.

    Two years later, Russia's alleged use of covert online operations became a topic of discussion all around world. And so Soldatov and Borogan began investigating again.

    Now they have released a new version of their book that includes an additional chapter on the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The new chapter provides important context about Russian President's Vladimir Putin's possible motivations — as well as evidence of apparent links between WikiLeaks and the Kremlin, and details of the ongoing fallout in Russia.

    Putin saw the Panama Papers as a personal attack and may have wanted revenge, Russian authors say